Enjoy.

– Denis Haack

If I could pick one contemporary film maker to meet and spend a day talking to about life, art, meaning, and story… I think it’d be Sam Mendes.

Mendes, whose first film American Beauty garnered well-deserved critical praise and won five Academy Awards, is now back in the spotlight for his latest work, Revolutionary Road, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and his wife, Kate Winslet.

Both of Mendes’ films shine an incisive light on materialism and modern American values. In both films, Mendes carefully but relentlessly challenges us to look at what we’ve become and to really see it. The despair brought about by rampant, uninhibited consumerism and materialism is palpable in both films. Yet Mendes’ skill as a film maker is so great that you do not feel as if you are being preached at as you watch. His use of color and the cinematography are perfect and you’re invited to marvel at the filmmaking while simultaneously being horrified by what’s happening in the film itself.

The film is the story of Frank and April Wheeler, a successful suburban couple living on Revolutionary Road, an idyllic setting in the mid 1950s, when the story takes place. Frank and April are seen as being the ideal young couple by their neighbors, all of whom appreciate the strong values and dependability of the couple. Frank has a good job in the city and April stays at home taking care of their two children. Yet, as is invariably the case in Mendes’ films, the appearance is the opposite of the reality beneath. Privately, the couple are being slowly strangled by life in suburbia and both need an escape. The film is the story of their attempt to escape their Mayberryesque lives.

Perhaps most thought-provoking in his latest work is the way Mendes takes many typically-American ideals and turns them on their head. Revolutionary Road - the suburban neighborhood in which the story takes place - is as bourgeois as it gets. Their neighbor’s insane son is, as we see the story develop, the only sane character in the film. Mendes takes icons that often typify one thing and uses them to represent their opposite. Life becomes death, revolution becomes apathy, insanity becomes lucidity.

I’ve kept my comments intentionally vague so as not to give away any plot details, but I would strongly encourage everyone to see this film. Mendes’ artistry as a filmmaker is remarkable, DiCaprio and Winslet are both excellent, and the story itself haunts you.

If you have seen it, what were your thoughts?

Bishop Allen… great accessible folksy pop.

The Everybodyfields, great folk band.

Over the Rhine… can’t believe I didn’t discover them till this year:

Regina Spektor… another great one I just discovered this year:

The Flaming Lips… first heard about them at L’Abri, listened a little more this year and I really dig them.

And last, The Fleet Foxes. Latest find and maybe my favorite. Here’s their song White Winter Hymnal.

Incidentally, my other underdeveloped hobbies include playing guitar, magic tricks, writing fiction and blogging. Look for the mp3s, publishing announcements and YouTube videos of card tricks coming soon!

When death is finally laid to rest,
Its fatal wound has run its course,
Then those the river’s washed away
Will wake back at it’s source

***

More platitutes than I can bear,
More epithets and eulogies
Have proved, when whispered in my ear,
Too small to meet my griefs

This “better place” - this fabled plain -
I’ve seen the cherubs plucking harps.
Ethereal realms can’t heal the pain
Of slowly stopping hearts

Away with your Socratic dreams
Of minds untethered by the flesh,
For I have drunk of deeper streams
And hoped of truer rest.

***

It’s these frail fingers, scarred and stained
By years of sins and cigarettes,
These fingers new and yet the same
Will bid farewell to death

What vict’ry will creation cheer
When Adam’s heirs burst from their tombs;
The curse is broke, the dawn is here,
The silent pulse resumes

The sting of death can only rend
The tent which is my desert home
And resurrection is the thread
From which my hope is sown

***

When death is finally laid to rest,
Its fatal wound has run its course,
Then those the river’s washed away
Will wake back at it’s source

Unfortunately, I don’t have video for this, but you must check out Derek Webb’s song Crooked Deep Down. Here’s a sample:

There was this girl she was made for me
But stood me up our wedding day
And now that girl runs around on me
And she’s drunk all the time
But I’d die to make her mine

Characteristically brilliant and hard-hitting stuff from Derek, go check it out as soon as possible.

Also, check out The Dimes:

This never gets old, Kimya Dawson singing Tire Swing. It’s not the best sound quality, but the atmosphere is so cool, I’m posting it:

My roommate also turned me on to a Jimi Hendrix project that lasted for a very short time in 1970 called Band of Gypsys:

Finally, some classic Miles and Coltrane:

What are some of the things on your list?

~ Denis Haack

So if you, like me, found yourself stumbling over that line… it’s a Psalm.

But for me, this still doesn’t put the issue entirely to rest. It just opens up another question: As Christians, ought we to sing the Psalms themselves or simply our own verses that are saturated with the theology of the Psalms? For better or worse, the Psalms don’t always make the best poetry in English. True, there are sections like Psalm 8 and Psalm 19 that really do work well as poetry, (”You’ve made him a little lower than the angels,” or “There’s no language where their voices are not heard.”) but they’re still Hebrew poetry that we’ve translated and when translating, you can preserve the ideas, but you can’t preserve the aesthetic quality.

So then here’s another public worship-related question: Should we sing the Psalms themselves in our churches, even if they aren’t very good verse when translated into English? I know of several traditions that insist on exclusive psalmnody in the church, but what then are we to do with the sometimes-lacking quality of the lyrics? As Chrisitans, shouldn’t we strive for lyrical excellence in the songs that we sing? Or is it simply the ideas being sung that matter? How are we to decide?